Toxic Rain Pathfinder Build Guide (PoE Betrayal 3.5)

Introduction

Toxic Rain has been a very strong bow skill since its release. It became even more powerful when people realized it is a great idea to use it with Quill Rain, although in 3.5 Betrayal league the bow is getting nerfed and is no longer the best choice for a build like this. Toxic Rain deals damage in two ways, first it deals initial damage via its initial hit, then it deals damage with the damage over time it leaves on the ground. In this regard the skill mechanic is similar to Caustic Arrow. You can either scale the hit damage or the damage over time portion, or you can do both. Choosing the Pathfinder allows us to use all the initial hits in order to poison and scale our damage via initial hits and poison stacking, the damage over time from the skill is just an extra that gets scaled from certain support gems and passive skill tree nodes any ways. Stacking poisons allows us to use Herald of Agony , which by the way has a great synergy with Panthfinder’s Master Toxicist.

Build Summary

The build does not require particular item to be playable, and is a great choice for a league-starter. Progressing through Acts should be a breeze and gearing for maps should not be hard at all. Uniques like Lioneye’s Glare are about couple of Chaos Orb at the start of a league, which is easily obtainable. Cherrubim’s Maleficence is also very cheap. In other slots you can just use some rare items to fill in resist gaps and gain life until you manage to acquire some stronger items mentioned in the Gear section.

Pros & Cons

Pros

+ Hardcore viable+ Can be played on a budget+ Great at both clearing and boss fights+ Feels safe due to the fact it is a bow build and the Toxic Rain slow effect+ The build is unaffected by any type of reflected damage.

Cons

- Playing a poison build means the front-end damage is low, therefore it is hard to rely on leech effects

Playstyle

Offensively, simply keep your distance from monsters and drop Toxic Rain a few times on the ground. Make sure to keep your Blood Rage up. When encountering tougher enemies that are not very mobile just keep spaying them in order to keep up maximum amount of poisons applied, this will also empower you crawler from Herald of Agony. Despair curse is the best offensive curse for the build, it can either be applied manually by casting it, or just use Witchfire Brew. Spell Totem Support can be used in order to apply Wither.

Defensively, Toxic Rain’s slow is a very powerful defensive mechanic that should be played around. Having a good amount of evasion along with Acrobatics will let you evade and dodge big portion of the incoming damage. The hardest hitting thing you should be wary about is physical spells, simply because you cannot evade spells and you have little to no armor in order to mitigate the damage. Use the regular Cast when Damage Taken Support Immortal Call in order to prevent deaths from porcupines.

Ascendancy, Passive Tree, Bandits and Pantheons

Ascendancy (Ranger – Pathfinder)

Nature’s Reprisal

Master Toxicist

Nature’s Boon

Nature’s Adrenaline

Nature’s Reprisal is the first choice, the increased damage and area of effect will help out a lot, the poison proliferation is great but becomes useful later in the game. Master Toxicist allows the poison stacking to begin, it also makes keeping up the crawler from Herald of Agony stronger at all times. Nature’s Boon makes sustaining flasks easier and reduces elemental damage taken. Nature’s Adrenaline provides additional movement and attack speed during flask effects.

Passive tree

Here is an endgame passive skill tree. Early on we should focus on life, poison and damage over time with bow skills. First head to the Duelist starting area while picking all the life and bow nodes on the way. Then pick up Druidic Rite, Primal Spirit and head to Acrobatics. To solve mana problems spec into Essence Sap. The Shadow and Scion starting areas is what you should look to pick up later on in you leveling experience.

Bandits

In Act II you have to do the quest “Deal with the Bandits”. This is a decision that you have to make for your character, which will stay with it for the rest of the game. You can either kill all bandits (Alira, Oak and Kraityn) for 2 additional passive skill tree points. The other choice is to help one of them for a specific reward. For this specific build we should kill all.

Pantheons

Major:Soul of Solaris synergizes well with every Acrobatics/Evasion build. Other god powers can be chosen based on personal preference.

Minor: A lot of minor pantheons can be beneficial. Garukhan provides additional movement speed if you haven’t been hit recently. Shakari helps dealing with poison and chaos damage over time. Ralakesh prevents you from dying to physical damage over time. Garukhan and Ralakesh will most likely be the more useful ones throughout the game.

Toxic Rain (6-Link)

The build’s damage is mainly back-ended, which means you rely on damage over time and poisons in order to kill enemies. One or two attacks with Toxic Rain should be enough to deal with every pack of monsters. For single target, you can rely on the strong slow the skill applies and rain down chaos upon your enemies, while also keeping your character at a safe distance.

Helmet

Rare helmet is the best choice. Any Toxic Rain helm enchant is useful, although the additional projectile is best. Look for a high evasion base like Lion’s Pelt. The Rare Affix priority is:

Maximum life

Elemental resistances

Evasion (preferably 500+)

Chaos resistance

Body armour

Cherrubim’s Maleficence is the best in slot for the build due to the fact it provides a lot of chaos damage, decent life and evasionrating. Although it should be cheap and easy to obtain, prior to it you can use Tabula Rasa or any rare base. Dendrobate can also be considered, although it is hard to cap the required dexterity/intelligence and the chest provides no life. The Rare Affix priority is:

Maximum Life

Elemental resistances

Evasion (preferably 1000+)

Chaos resistance

Gloves

Fenumus' Weave is a great choice for the build, although it may be very hard to obtain and expensive. Instead you can just use a rare pair of well rolled gloves. The Rare Affix priority is:

Maximum life

Attack speed

Flat physical damage

Elemental resistances

Note: It is recommended to look for corrupted gloves with Temporal Chains on hit.

Boots

No particular unique boots are best in slot for the build. Look for a well rolled rare boots with enchant for additional attack speed if you’ve killed recently. The Rare Affix priority is:

Belt

Amulet

For the amulet slot we need a decently rolled one on which we can craft additional flat chaos damage via the master crafting. The Rare Affix priority is:

Maximum life

Elemental resistances

Rings

If you manage to get curse on hit gloves with Temporal Chains and you run Witchfire Brew you can use Doedre’s Damning in order to have both curses up at the same time. If that is not the case just look for rare rings with crafted flat amount of chaos damage, same as the amulet. The Rare Affix priority is:

Quiver

Maloney’s Nightfall is the best quiver for the build. Prior to it use a quiver in order to cap resists, have life and maybe some physical damage. The Rare Affix priority is:

Maximum life

Elemental resistances

Flat physical damage

Flasks

Quicksilver flask of Adrenaline improves the speed of the build a lot. Silver flask provides Onslaught which is very handy, but can be dropped if you have an abyssal jewel for that purpose. Depending on personal preference you can run a Mana flask if you have mana problems, although this should not be the case. Witchfire Brew provides a great amount of damage to the build. Coralito’s Signature can be used for the additional poison duration. Instant or 50% instant Life flask is mandatory for the build, it is recommended to have your bleed removal on it. Instead of the Silver and Mana flasks you can run any of the following utility flasks: Jade, Quartz, Basalt, Ruby, Sapphire and Topaz.

Jewels

There are no unique jewels required for the build. Look for well rolled regular and abyssal jewels.

Regular Jewel Affix Priority

Maximum life

Projectile damage

Poison Damage

Chaos damage

Physical damage

Attack speed/Attack speed with bows

Abyssal Jewel Affix Priority

Maximum life

Added physical/chaos damage

Attack speed

Leveling

You can level with Toxic Rain as soon as you get it, the base damage of the skill and its slow make it a good leveling skill choice.

Leveling Trees

Early on we should focus on life, poison and damage over time with bow skills. First head to the Duelist starting area while picking all the life and bow nodes on the way. Then pick up Druidic Rite, Primal Spirit and head to Acrobatics. To solve mana problems spec into Essence Sap. The Shadow and Scion starting areas is what you should look to pick up later on in you leveling experience.

Useful Leveling Unique Items

As you begin a new character there are few unique items that can boost your power exponentially. Tabula Rasa allows you to have a 6-Linked skill as early as you get the gems. Wanderlust gives a decent movement speed, which will make your leveling that much more efficient. Goldrim provides a lot of elemental resistances, this will let you worry less about gearing when approaching certain Act encounters. Quill Rain and Ondar's Clasp will help out with the damage early on.

Gem Progression

Using Tabula Rasa will allow you to have 6-Link gem setups early on, which is why we show such examples below. If you cannot get Tabula Rasa (or another item with a 6-Link), then simply prioritize the first gems in each link provided below.

In order to acquire gems that are not available to your class as a quest reward, simply ask a friend to buy them off vendors for you, or buy them yourself from Sioasa in The Library in Act III Library.

FAQ

The build has little upfront damage, since you cannot rely mainly on leech, where does the sustain come from?

Combining Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics with the very strong slow mechanic from Toxic Rain will keep you very safe. Make sure to keep your distance and whenever you get hit just escape with Blink Arrow, pop your Life flask and slow the enemy again.

Why would I choose to play a poison build? It is generally slower than most instant damage builds.

While this might be true here are few reasons that poison builds are better than the instant damage builds. Instant damage builds rely on meeting weaker foes and killing them with single strike, they tend to lack on single target damage more than the poison-stacking builds. With the Toxic Rain Pathfinder you also make a great use of Herald of Agony, which in many cases removes the clear speed problem. The build remains extremely strong in single target encounters with all the poison stacks and the bonus damage from the agony crawler.

Conclusion

Over the course of its lifetime Toxic Rain proved to be a very strong bow skill. Even though Quill Rain got nerfed, which affects most Toxic Rain builds, it is still a very strong and endgame viable skill. The build can deal with every endgame boss while also having great clear speed potential.